1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method and a device for monitoring a mobile telephone repeater of the kind having two antennas and two links therebetween, said two links comprising an uplink for amplifying signals from a mobile telephone to a base station and a downlink for amplifying signals from said base station to said mobile telephone, said two links being provided with a number of amplifier chains each being designed to pass through a specific signal frequency channel or frequency band, wherein a possible continuous and strong signal, being caused either by an instability involving a positive feed back between said two antennas or by a disturbing signal, is detected by applying a test criterion which includes measuring a signal level and checking whether the measured signal level exceeds a threshold value, whereupon an amplifying gain in the respective amplifier chain is adjusted in response to the result of the stability test.
2. Description of the Related Art
A repeater for use in cellular telephone systems is a device which amplifies a received RF-signal and retransmits the amplified signal at the same carrier frequency. Accordingly, there is a risk that the signal retransmitted from one antenna is picked up by the other antenna so as to cause a positive feedback and a strong self-oscillating signal which is maintained by the amplifiers in the particular amplifier chain.
If the downlink oscillates, the area to be covered by the repeater may be disturbed so as to make the mobile telephones in this area inoperative. On the other hand, if the uplink oscillates, the associated base station will receive a continuous, strong signal which blocks the receiver of the base station and prevents it from functioning properly.